Dave Barry

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Dave Barry
Dave-barry-post-hunt-2011.jpg
Barry at the 2011 Washington Post Hunt
BornDavid McAlister Barry
(1947-07-03) July 3, 1947 (age 77)
Armonk, New York, U.S.
Occupation Humorist
Author
Alma mater Haverford College (BA)
SpouseAnn Shelnutt (1969–19?) [1]
Beth Lenox
​
​
(m. 1976;div. 1993)​

​
(m. 1996)​
Children2
Signature
Dave Barry signature.jpg
Website
davebarry.com

David McAlister Barry (born July 3, 1947) is an American author and columnist who wrote a nationally syndicated humor column for the Miami Herald from 1983 to 2005. He has written numerous books of humor and parody, as well as comic novels and children's novels. Barry's honors include the Pulitzer Prize for Commentary (1988) and the Walter Cronkite Award for Excellence in Journalism (2005).

Contents

Barry has defined a sense of humor as "a measurement of the extent to which we realize that we are trapped in a world almost totally devoid of reason. Laughter is how we express the anxiety we feel at this knowledge". [2]

Early life and education

Barry was born in Armonk, New York, where his father, David W. Barry, was a Presbyterian minister. He was educated at Wampus Elementary School, Harold C. Crittenden Junior High School (both in Armonk), and Pleasantville High School, where he was elected "Class Clown" in 1965. He earned a bachelor of arts degree in English from Haverford College in 1969. [3]

As an alumnus of a Quaker-affiliated college, he avoided military service during the Vietnam War by registering as a religious conscientious objector. [4] Barry decided "early on" that he was an atheist. [5] He said, "The problem with writing about religion is that you run the risk of offending sincerely religious people, and then they come after you with machetes." [5]

Writing career

Barry began his journalism career in 1971, working as a general-assignment reporter for the Daily Local News in West Chester, Pennsylvania, near his alma mater, Haverford College. He covered local government and civic events and was promoted to city editor after about two years. He also started writing a weekly humor column for the newspaper and began to develop his unique style. He remained at the newspaper through 1974. He then worked briefly as a copy editor at the Philadelphia bureau of Associated Press before joining Burger Associates, a consulting firm. [6]

At Burger, he taught effective writing to businesspeople. In his own words, he "spent nearly eight years trying to get various businesspersons to...stop writing things like 'Enclosed please find the enclosed enclosures,' but...eventually realized that it was hopeless." [7]

In 1981, he wrote a humorous guest column in The Philadelphia Inquirer about watching the birth of his son, which attracted the attention of Gene Weingarten, then an editor of the Miami Herald Sunday magazine, Tropic . Weingarten hired Barry as a humor columnist in 1983. Barry's column was syndicated nationally. Barry won a Pulitzer Prize for Commentary in 1988 for "his consistently effective use of humor as a device for presenting fresh insights into serious concerns". [8]

Barry's first novel, Big Trouble , was published in 1999. The book was adapted into a motion picture directed by Barry Sonnenfeld and starring Tim Allen, Rene Russo, and Patrick Warburton, with a cameo by Barry (deleted in post-production). The movie was originally due for release in September 2001, but was postponed following the September 11, 2001 attacks because the story involved terrorists smuggling a nuclear weapon onto an airplane. The film was released in April 2002.

In response to a column in which Barry mocked the cities of Grand Forks, North Dakota, and East Grand Forks, Minnesota, for calling themselves the "Grand Cities", Grand Forks named a sewage pumping station after Barry in January 2002. Barry traveled to Grand Forks for the dedication ceremony. [9]

Articles written by Barry have appeared in publications such as Boating , Home Office Computing, and Reader's Digest , in addition to the Chicken Soup for the Soul inspirational book series. Two of his articles have been included in The Best American Sports Writing series. One of his columns was used as the introduction to the book Pirattitude!: So You Wanna Be a Pirate? Here's How! ( ISBN   0-451-21649-0), a follow-up to Barry's role in publicizing International Talk Like a Pirate Day. His books have frequently appeared on The New York Times Best Seller list.

On October 31, 2004, Barry announced that he would be taking an indefinite leave of absence of at least a year from his weekly column to spend more time with his family. In December 2005, Barry said in an interview with Editor & Publisher that he would not resume his weekly column, although he would continue such features as his yearly gift guide, his year-in-review feature, and his blog, as well as an occasional article or column.

In 2005, Barry won the Walter Cronkite Award for Excellence in Journalism. [10]

Dave's World television series

From 1993 to 1997, CBS broadcast the sitcom Dave's World based on the books Dave Barry Turns 40 and Dave Barry's Greatest Hits. The show starred Harry Anderson as Barry and DeLane Matthews as his wife Beth. In an early episode, Barry appeared in a cameo role. After four seasons, the program was canceled shortly after being moved from its "coveted" Monday night slot [11] to the "Friday night death slot", so named because of its association with low viewership. [12]

Music

During college, Barry was in a band called the Federal Duck (the band issued a self-titled album on Musicor Records in 1968, but by that time Barry was no longer in the group). While at the Miami Herald, he and several of his colleagues created a band called the Urban Professionals, with Barry on lead guitar and vocals. They performed an original song called "The Tupperware Song" at the Tupperware headquarters in Orlando, Florida. [13]

Beginning in 1992, Barry played lead guitar in the Rock Bottom Remainders, a rock band made up of published authors. Remainder is a publishing term for a book that does not sell. The band was founded by Barry's sister-in-law, Kathi Kamen Goldmark, for an American Booksellers Association convention, and has included Stephen King, Amy Tan, Ridley Pearson, Scott Turow, Mitch Albom, Roy Blount Jr., Barbara Kingsolver, Matt Groening, and Barry's brother Sam, among others. [14] [15] The band's members "are not musically skilled, but they are extremely loud", according to Barry. Several high-profile musicians, including Al Kooper, Warren Zevon, and Roger McGuinn have performed with the band, and Bruce Springsteen sat in at least once. The band's road tour resulted in the book, Mid-Life Confidential: The Rock Bottom Remainders Tour America with Three Chords and an Attitude. The Rock Bottom Remainders disbanded in 2012 following Goldmark's death from breast cancer. They have reunited several times, performing at the Tucson Festival of Books in 2016 and 2018.

Other activities

Beginning in 1984, Barry and Tropic editors Gene Weingarten and Tom Shroder have organized the Tropic Hunt (now the Herald Hunt), an annual puzzlehunt in Miami. A Washington, D.C., spinoff, the Post Hunt, began in 2008. [16]

Barry has run several mock campaigns for president of the United States, running on a libertarian platform. He has also written for the Libertarian Party's national newsletter. [17]

The screen adaptation of Barry's book Dave Barry's Complete Guide to Guys was released in 2005; it is available on DVD. [18]

Personal life

Barry married Lois Ann Shelnutt in 1969. [1] He married Beth Lenox in 1976. Barry and Lenox worked together at the Daily Local News, where they began their journalism careers on the same day in September 1971; they had one child, Robert, born 1980. Barry and Lenox divorced in 1993. In 1996, Barry married Miami Herald sportswriter Michelle Kaufman; [19] they had a daughter, Sophie, in 2000.

Barry's father and his youngest brother suffered from alcoholism, and his father died in 1984; his sister Mary Katherine was institutionalized for schizophrenia; and his mother died by suicide in 1987. [20] [21]

Barry has had dogs named Goldie, Earnest, Zippy, and now Lucy. All have been mentioned regularly in Barry's columns. [22]

Works

Non-fiction

Collected columns

Fiction

Film adaptations

Collaborations

Audio recordings

See also

Notes

  1. 1 2 "Lois Ann Shelnutt Bride of Mr. Barry". The Morning News. June 9, 1969. Retrieved September 19, 2017.
  2. ↑ Curtis, Bryan (January 12, 2005). "An elegy for Dave Barry". Slate. Retrieved June 3, 2007.
  3. ↑ "Dave Barry". Biography.com. Archived from the original on April 15, 2019. Retrieved September 19, 2017.
  4. ↑ "The World According To Dave Barry", 1985, Eric Zorn, Chicago Tribune
  5. 1 2 Huberman, Jack (2007). The Quotable Atheist. Nation Books. p.  31. ISBN   978-1-56025-969-5.
  6. ↑ "2008ish bio". Dave Barry. Retrieved November 1, 2017.
  7. ↑ "1999 Dave Barry Biography" . Retrieved May 6, 2007.
  8. ↑ "Pulitzer Prize Winners 1988" . Retrieved May 6, 2007.
  9. ↑ "Idling in the Grand Cities". March 17, 2002. Retrieved April 11, 2016.
  10. ↑ Arizona State University. "Walter Cronkite School of Journalism and Mass Communication" . Retrieved November 23, 2016.
  11. ↑ Lawler, Sylvia (May 30, 1993). "CBS Hopes Broad-based Programming Keeps It on Top". The Morning Call. Retrieved January 3, 2020.
  12. ↑ Oestriecher, Blake. "WWE SmackDown Going Live On Tuesdays Is Best For Business". Forbes. Retrieved January 4, 2020.
  13. ↑ Barry, Dave. Dave Barry's Greatest Hits, p. 110
  14. ↑ McGrath, Charles (June 4, 2007). "Rock On, but Hang on to Your Literary Gigs". The New York Times. Retrieved May 25, 2012.
  15. ↑ "Dave Barry" . Retrieved September 5, 2016.
  16. ↑ Ruane, Michael E. (May 19, 2008). "Urban Safari Participants Find Equal Parts Fun and Frustration". The Washington Post. ISSN   0190-8286 . Retrieved November 23, 2019.
  17. ↑ Presidency 2000:The Independent, Write-In, and other Candidates, Politics1.com Archived June 16, 2010, at the Wayback Machine
  18. ↑ Complete Guide to Guys (2005) - IMDb , retrieved November 23, 2019
  19. ↑ Joan Fleischman (November 13, 1996). "We're Not Making This Up: Dave Barry Gets Hitched". The Miami Herald. p. 2B.
  20. ↑ "He Can't Make This Up". Newsweek . December 15, 1991. Retrieved May 30, 2017.
  21. ↑ Peter Richmond (September 23, 1990). "Loon over Miami: The On-Target Humor of Dave Barry". The New York Times . Retrieved May 30, 2017.
  22. ↑ "People & Their Pets | Social Miami & Paws 4 You Rescue | March 2012". Max Norman Pet Photography. April 5, 2012. Retrieved October 11, 2016.
  23. ↑ "Hard Listening".
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